Children's relationships with parents, teachers, and peers: Linkages with internalizing and externalizing behavior

Examined children's relationships with parents, teachers, and peers and associations with emotional and behavioral adjustment in kindergarten. Parent-child relationships were differentially associated with withdrawn behavior, aggressive behavior, and loneliness. Relationships with teachers and peers moderated the associations between the parent-child relationship and adjustment. Analyses revealed support for school relationships as exacerbating factors, but less support for school relationships as protective factors. A close relationship with the teacher protected against concurrent externalizing behavior for children who experienced low mutual warmth with parents. Mutual best friendship and peer group acceptance, did not act as protective factors. Negative relationship experiences with peers did, however, serve to exacerbate concurrent and later adjustment problems for children who experienced low mutual warmth, low contingent responding, or high hostility with parents. This type of effect was not found for conflictual teacher-child relationships. Results differed for boys and girls. These data highlight the importance of examining children's relationships at home and at school in order to best understand emotional and behavioral adjustment.